The Great Pumpkin - '71 Duster
Bellmore is a great cruise night. I drove my Barracuda from Ridge (LIE Exit 68) to Bellmore one night. 255-60-15s and 4.30 gears. 2 chambered Flowmasters. That was a long drive.
Yep. That's what we do with these cars. Bellmore is a lot of fun, I might go down again this week. I often see some of the usual suspects down there.
Couple weeks ago I went and I got screwed on the way back because the Route 135 North entrance off Sunrise was closed off for repair. I went on this detour and somehow missed the next entrance and ended up getting way off track. I swear, I must have gone through 50 towns to get home. What normally takes about 25 minutes took almost an hour. That too was a long ride.
And just before the detour I saw a crazy thing happen. Right off the 135 South exit going west on Sunrise there were a bunch of work trucks parked on one side of the road with yellow lights flashing. I guess they were waiting to take gravel or asphalt onto 135. So I was heading east on the other side and out of the corner of my eye I see a car driving pretty fast right towards the trucks. The driver must have been texting or drunk because he/she didn't see the trucks soon enough and basically drove right into the back of one. Only skidded a little then POW. Looked pretty bad.
Haven't done much with the car lately. It really is pretty much done, I can get in it and drive it anywhere which is a great feeling. Picked up a few things over the last couple weeks, like an old school Moroso 11" air cleaner to replace the crappy parts store black one I have on there now. Really, not much to write about other than getting it to run better.
I did run it down a back road the other day with my LM-1 and laptop hooked up and recorded some data. I have a nice lean spike right before I shift which likely indicates needing to go up a few jet sizes. Also may need to go back to the pink pump cam since it has a longer duration than the red one which is on there now. The a/f numbers climb steadily to almost 20:1 on the chart until it shifts. Its only for a second but it needs to be remedied.
Also noticed a little valve tick coming from the driver's side. I think I may have had the lash too tight so I backed it off a few thousandths. Seemed to go away for the most part. Or maybe I'm just pretending that I don't hear it. I'll keep driving it, hope it makes it through the summer.
On another note - I had planned to take the car to Englishtown for the Old Time Drags a few weeks back. I was all set. Gas was filled up, got my helmet etc. Bad thing was though, (besides the tick) the forecast on Sat. was for rain all day Sunday and heavy at times. Woke up at 6, checked the weather, no change. Went back to sleep for a bit, got back up, no change. Cloudy outside, few rain drops. Decided to stay home. Of course, it didn't rain a drop at Etown. :banghead:
I'm also gonna miss the Mopar Atlantic Nationals in two weeks because of a prior engagement. :banghead: